


Ways to Go

by Etnoe



Category: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi | Spirited Away
Genre: Gen, Portals, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 11:40:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13053282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/pseuds/Etnoe
Summary: Chihiro hasn't been doing too badly in the normal world. But sometimes, the ways she'd changed in the spirit world do become very clear to her.





	Ways to Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smilebackwards](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/gifts).



Winter came, with thick drifts of snow; sharp clear air that made every passing car sound noisier; and blanketing quiet times when snowfall muffled everything, as if there was ampart of the world at a sudden, unexpected distance... That kind of quiet made Chihiro think of a twist in a mountain road that had led further away than it should have, although she knew, every day with stirred-up clouds or darkened evening with blotted-out stars, that it was never anything like that. 

She told herself that at times when she wrestled into and out of layers and layers of warm clothing, thinking hard enough about it that her parents often came rushing because they thought they had better help, before she got stuck on the arm of a jacket for a fourth time. The lesson just wouldn't sink in, and it was such a simple one.

Winter was the thing that, long after her time at the bathhouse, made Chihiro feel like her old self. It was awful!

Her old self was embarrassing. A _huge baby_. She knew she'd felt that kind of change before ... But it had been something to laugh about with her friends, thinking back on how babyish they'd been a previous year, and how grown-up they had become. This time was different - she only needed herself to decide that she'd been someone she no longer wanted to be - but the old Chihiro seemed to get pulled out of one of the unpacked boxes along with her winter boots. Old Chihiro still fit inside Today's Chihiro as if she belonged there, and she was a person so impatient it felt like overheating, and she refused to look at obvious things whether they were good or bad, and was dumb on purpose, and all sorts of things that she didn't have to be.

She thought hard, from one morning to the next morning, about whether or not she should ask her parents to call her Sen, instead. Under that name, she had found a lot of things to be proud of and that she wanted to keep.

But, from dawn to dreams to dawn, she decided that being Chihiro probably meant this kind of thing would happen. Sen had been someone with a lot of disappearing parts. Chihiro had a lot more to her that was a lot more certain. She was home, and had a family name, and, of course, her family itself. At least it wasn't as if they minded helping her with her clothes again. Dad was sometimes a little too jolly about getting to baby her like he always used to, and Mom made an effort to cheer her up by giving her more of her favourite treats. It didn't exactly make everything okay, but for now she would stick with the decision.

It was just that she remembered summer the most from her time at the bathhouse. It was the air scented with fruit, flowers, baked earth, sweat, soap ... her own reddened feet part of a whole team of feet dangling bare between balcony railings to cool after a day's work ... falling, almost floating from a great height with her hands held, the air so warm she only really cooled at her edges, fingers and ears and almost her nose, except for how her face had been held close to Haku's. Winter was far from what she most wanted to remember, and its quiet times brought the memories too close in the wrong way. She was also a little afraid of going back to the spirit world, after all.

*

Summer came.

It came when it shouldn't, and there was only a flickering, floating, heartstopping silly bit of it.

"Look!" said Mom, "a firefly! I'm sure of it, right there!" She was at the window, pointing ouside, not looking away even as she turned her face a little to speak to them. Chihiro raced over, and Dad came too, saying halves of mildly disbelieving sentences. Then the three of them stood frozen. Chihiro stared at it and held her breath as if that might help it fly easier. Up above her, there was a squeaky sound from her father cleaning the mist of his own breath from the windowpane, so that he could keep looking.

They went to see. All three of them rushed to get ready to go outside, laughing with the excitement of the strange little happening, Chihiro, too. She had the firm sense that this wasn't from the world she belonged to, but this time, with the joyful parts of summer come back to her suddenly and fully, being afraid couldn't compare.

When they were dressed up warmly and otherwise prepared, they spilled outside. Chihiro watched her mother put the key away safely in a pocket that zipped shut - it was probably better to make sure no one could go in while they were gone, and it was definitely safer to make sure two people knew where the key was, in case they needed to run back to safety. And then out they went, towhere the firefly now drifted in crisp air that (was it really?) seemed warmer with the sight of it.

They followed that flickering light as it dozily travelled the garden.

"I can't believe it!" Chihiro skipped ahead a few steps and beamed as she waited to be caught up. "This is amazing!"

"It really is!" Mom agreed. "How is that little bug so bright and healthy? It looks like ... the perfect buttery bite of something. You'd think it would be dim and slow!"

"But the light is greenish!" Chihiro objected vehemently, and immediately began to dig through her pockets. "What kind of butter is that colour?" And why would you call him 'he'? -- But that question wouldn't work. They might just tease her, instead, for now also believing that the firefly was a 'he'. She just thought her parents might have an instinct about that kind of thing, after their time as animals, and it seemed more polite to apply that knowledge. She firmly remembered how important it was to be polite.

She had shoved some of the energy bars Dad liked into her coat pockets, and offered them up. Absently, her parents took one each. They didn't eat at all like pigs! Chihiro would defend that, in her imagination and if anyone ever dared to actually say it. But she did think their thoughts turned to eating and food a little too fast, these days.

"I just want to know why that thing is so big!" Her father turned a grin on them, one cheek bulging a little with a bite of energy bar. "Come on. I think we should see if we can find more. That's why fireflies have lights, after all, to signal each other. What do you say - a little adventure, huh?"

He turned to Chihiro, tone gaining a touch of wheedling. "Yeah? What do you say?"

"I can do it," she assured him. "But let's hold hands and be careful."

"Maybe I want to know when you got so big," Mom said softly, warmly, and the three of them set forth. Their garden wasn't that large - they were out of it in the next few steps. Down the street, currently clear of snow, just a lot of slush to make up for it - but it was hard to really remember that it was there, messy and cold, and even their exhaled breaths seemed to make smaller clouds. Could a firefly god really be strong enough to do all that? Not to be insulting - Chihiro thought, even though she doubted he could hear her - but I do wonder if you had a friend who helped you get here. Or if a friend of mine asked you...

The street wasn't this long, either. It probably shouldn't be this quiet, without other people or vehicles. Chihiro leaned her head against her mother's arm for a second, sighing, but she still had courage.

Which was why it felt really unfair when - they rounded a corner and found an orchard.

Hey! _Was_ someone trying to make it seem like her parents were so terribly greedy they'd get in trouble the same way as before. "Is this rude?" Chihiro said. She was trying to keep her voice even, but she was very indignant. She had to avoid looking at the firefly (god?) so that she didn't glare.

Mom and Dad murmured to each other. "I think Chihiro is right - we must be trespassing."

"Well, we won't break anything, and it's hardly like there's anything that we could be accused of stealing... There won't be any fruit now, this time of year."

"Oh!" Chihiro said, and was glad to have avoided anything that might tick off the firefly, or whoever might have sent it. "Then let's go. Look, it's over there."

Between the trees, there was more snow, and ice on the branches. All she had to do to get away from that was to look at their little guiding light. When she did that, the air wasn't scented like she remembered, but there was something close to it. She scuffed a boot in the dirt just a little, and caught that richness, and peered among the green-black leaves and could catch that fruit-flower sweetness. Chihiro squeezed her parents' hands - she hoped that wasn't too Old Chihiro - and wondered if Haku, the Kohaku River that didn't have his own water anymore, had found a way to be at home where he was, something she had so easily here. And Lin? She'd wanted to leave the bathhouse. The spirit world must have many more strange places; Lin would almost definitely be able to handle them, though. If she got the chance.

The sun shone on Chihiro's face, and she shivered from tip to toe, her gasp as loud as a cry.

Only for an instant.

"Sweetheart?" said her mother, a second late to pat her back reassuringly, but Chihiro didn't think the same noon brightness had touched her parents. They'd only seen the fireflies, dizzy and crawling and drifting and slowly, gently pulsing with light, all across two trees at the edge of the orchard. That was enough, though. The shock of sunshine had to make room for how beautiful the fireflies were, and Chihiro stared until she realised her mouth was getting too dry from hanging open, and there was enough cold, still, that she wanted to stomp her feet for a little warmth.

The two trees and the fireflies together kind of made an arch. That wasn't the only thing she noticed - it really was amazing to see pretty firefly lights in among the ice and snow. But if she looked between winter, lights, branches, and leaves ... something bright was there.

A tall shape in the pale gold light, formidable ... and ... Chihiro stifled a sound of pain. That wasn't Yubaba's bathhouse, scary as it was, It was a place she didn't know at all, the landscape around it mountainous.

The fireflies went through their own arch as soon as she caught the dragon's eye on the other side. Their lights disappeared quickly between the leaves, and then nothing was left.

"Strangest thing I've ever seen," her mother said in a big, cloudy sigh, and Dad hugged them both, grinning and sad. They all turned and went back the way they'd come, Chihiro keeping an eye on bootprints in the snow and dirt. It was nice that the gate seemed so organised, with trees in straight lines to show the way, but she wanted to be careful. When they reached the street, it was the normal length again, and with enough people around to make sense as being part of the world they knew best.

*

When the firefly came back, Chihiro had prepared. In a saucer by the cracked-open window ofher room was food - a little meat, a little sugar water. "I can offer you food, without anything about it that would keep you here with me. I promise," she told him. Big and buttery-green (she could kind of see how that description worked), the firefly drifted onto the plate.

"Could you tell me if I can help my friends? The people, or the person, who asked you to come and show me that place you did."

He glowed brighter. No other answer. "Maybe they're travelling," she asked, wondered. "Maybe they're trying to say how hard it would be to get back to the bathhouse from here." It probably wouldn't be as safe for her if she found her way to the spirit world from here... Wait, had the glowing been actually brighter just now, or was that part of the normal pulse of the light?

Maybe it was just something nice that her spirit friends had done, because they liked Chihiro and missed her. She laughed a little to herself to think that direct and practical Lin would do that, and Haku, who could be so stern. But she knew them softer, too, when Lin's offhand attention had gained honesty, and Haku had held a memory of her close to him. They liked her, they really did - just for being Chihiro, and so did Bo and the bird, Kamaji, No-Face the two witches... They liked her, she thought, when she was happy. And then she thought again: when she had no ideas about loosening bits of her name.

That, she suddenly realised, was a dangerous stray thought to have. It was a little like she kept an eye on how her parents could get greedy. Could the spirits tell something like that? They had known her most of the time as Sen. Maybe something of that stuck, so that they could hear an echo of it...

When she blinked herself out of thought, the firefly was gone, and the air from the cracked-open window freezing.

But spring, and summer, would come. And travels, again, hopefully for Lin, maybe for Haku, and definitely for her and her parents; perhaps up that winding road that she remembered, in the green brightness of the forest.


End file.
